Yarnell shrine scarred by wildfire but still standing

Apr. 20, 2014
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The family of Maria Wassonâ??s late husband, Barney, opened the Shrine of St. Joseph of the Mountains in 1939. The shrine includes a path where visitors can pray the Stations of the Cross. The shrine was damaged in the Yarnell Hill Fire but is being restored. / Pat Shannahan, The Arizona Republic

by Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic

by Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic

PHOENIX -- They were helping their parents pack up the 70-year-old house in Yarnell, but once or twice each hour, one of the three Wasson brothers would scramble up the rocky hill on the property to see how close the wildfire was getting.

The hill was the most noted tourist attraction in the town. Crosses and stark-white religious statues dotted a path, depicting scenes of the final hours of Jesus Christ.

The statues were part of a shrine created by the Wasson brothers' grandfather at the end of the Great Depression. Stretched out over a less than quarter-mile-long path, they were built for the Catholic tradition of Stations of the Cross. They became a destination for the faithful and the curious in Arizona.

At the base of the hill, the brothers' grandfather had built a house. In the decades since, it had filled up with heirlooms, trinkets, photos and memories accumulated over lifetimes.

Volunteers had kept the Shrine of St. Joseph of the Mountains maintained, its path cleared of vegetation. But tall trees and brush surrounded the statues and wooden crosses.

Now, the whole hillside was in danger. From the rocky top, the Wasson brothers could see the fire coming.

By late afternoon that day, June 30, the fire was hopping down tree tops just across the street, said Barnaby Wasson. His mother, who had already evacuated with the boys' father to Prescott, was telling Barnaby to leave. A fire captain told him the same thing.

Barnaby and his brothers gathered the last pieces of home and drove out, the hillside shrine disappearing behind them. As they went, Barnaby said, the sky turned orange. Embers fell around them.

Fire would sweep past their family home and the shrine that afternoon. Nearby, the flames would rush into a deep canyon,where 19 firefighters were trying to make it to safe ground.

Nothing could slow it down. What it ravaged and what it spared were beyond human control.

During the 1920s, William Wasson and his wife, Mary, along with nine other devout Phoenix families, formed the Catholic Action League.

Wasson owned land in Yarnell and thought it would be a fitting spot for a shrine. The Catholic League commissioned a statue of St. Joseph, the patron saint of workers. A Phoenix man carved a statue out of a block of concrete. The shrine opened in 1939.

Wasson built a small house on his property, hand-selecting the timber from the surrounding trees.

By 1942, Wasson had grander ambitions. He wanted statues of the final events of Christ's life, as told in the Gospels. He wanted a statue of the Last Supper, Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and a trail up the rocky hill marked with the Stations of the Cross, the plaques seen in Catholic churches that tell the story of the crucifixion and resurrection.

In Wasson's vision, the crucifixion scene would be on top of the hill.

He needed an artist. He found one in Tucson, a man motivated by a personal miracle.

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Felix Lucero was lying wounded on a battlefield in France during World War I. Lucero promised the Virgin Mary he would devote his life to creating religious art if he were spared. Lucero would later say he saw a vision that led him and other soldiers out of the battlefield to safety.

Lucero moved to Tucson and lived under a bridge. He started creating sculptures of biblical scenes from materials he found in the riverbed.

In Yarnell, in 1942, the Wassons read about Lucero and hired him to build their statues.

The statues - including a new St. Joseph - were completed by 1949. Months later, Lucero suffered burns in a fire at the tent that served as his Tucson home. He died before he could see his work in place.

In Yarnell, volunteers moved boulders to clear a path of about two-tenths of a mile, creating more than 200 steps of concrete and stone. A cave became a tomb for the statue of the body of Jesus.

Stories of the shrine's construction became Wasson family lore.

There was a mule named Gen. Douglas MacArthur that took materials - concrete, stone and water - up and down the hill. He also served as a time clock of sorts for the volunteer workers. When the mule felt there were enough tasks completed for the day, he would walk into his barn. No one could get him out.

William and Mary Wasson oversaw the shrine once it opened. Their two sons would go to Mexico to study religion. Bill became a priest and started an orphanage, Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, that became one of the world's largest. Barney became an artist and sculptor who would find work designing church interiors. In Mexico, he also met his wife, Maria Luisa.

After William and Mary Wasson died, Barney and Maria moved into the house by the shrine and became its guardians. The couple also bought a ranch on the other side of the hill. Barney Wasson worked on his religious artwork there. As children, his three sonswould use an old firebreak to run up and over the hill between the two properties.

Time and visitors would take their toll on the shrine. Through the years, wooden handrails needed to be replaced, stones had to be reset, and bushes needed to be cut back from the pathway. The Wassons relied on volunteers to do the work and donations to buy the materials.

To secure a steadier stream of donations, the Wassons created a retreat center. Church groups could rent the dorm buildings, named Luke, Mark and Matthew, for weekend spiritual getaways. Another building held a kitchen and meeting room.

Maria also ran a gift shop on weekends. Among the most popular items, she said, were candles. So much so that a sign was placed near the crucifix. "Notice," it read, "never leave burning candles here." The worry was fire.

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Maria Luisa Wasson went to the U.S. Post Office in Yarnell on the morning of June 30. Residents had been getting daily briefings there on the fire that had started Friday. After the official announcement, Maria talked to the woman and explained her situation: Her husband, Barney, was on oxygen and moved slowly. Her three sons lived hours away in Phoenix. She needed to know whether there was a possibility they would need to evacuate their home up on Shrine Road.

Maria said the woman told her to call her boys, and to start packing.

By 11 a.m., all three sons had made it to Yarnell and started grabbing artwork, photos, trinkets and clothes.

By 2 p.m., the house was packed. Maria made a lunch of pork chops and everything perishable that was in the refrigerator. "At least we are going to eat good," she said.

With no evacuation order coming, the brothers headed to the ranch property to salvage an old Volkswagen stored there. Maria and Barney would evacuate to Prescott.

Barnaby said he and his brothers arrived at the ranch to find several large trucks parked near the property. The Granite Mountain Hotshots had left their vehicles there when they hiked in that morning. A crew of Blue Ridge Hotshots also had parked there, preparing to cut a wide path through the brush.

The sons started loading the Volkswagen. But as they did, they noticed the fire crews packing up. A commander with Blue Ridge told Barnaby that the crew had been asked to relocate.

The brothers went back to the shrine house. They wanted one more look at the fire. They never got that far.

Heading on foot toward the hill that held the shrine, they saw more fire vehicles. A captain ordered them out. From the ground, Barnaby could see flames headed toward the retreat center.

The brothers got back in the truck and drove away. The fire crews followed them out.

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The Yarnell Hill Fire mowed through the area in scattershot fashion, leaving both heartbreak and relief. Nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew were overrun by flames in what would be the deadliest wildfire in Arizona history. At least 127 structures were destroyed. But some homes next to leveled ones appeared untouched.

People were kept out of Yarnell for more than a week while firefighters battled to get the blaze under control.

The evacuation order was lifted July 8. When the Wassons arrived at the shrine, they first noticed what was gone.

The gift shop was leveled. So was a storage building. Four of the retreat center buildings had burned down.

But the fire skipped over the family's house, which didn't even smell like smoke inside.

As for the shrine, most of the statues were covered in black ash. But every wooden cross along the path still stood.